First Steps

[Vladimir]

I have absolutely no experience.I am going to buy 2 hives with bees next week.
When I take them home (from the mountains 200km away), can I open the hives to see that the frames are in order or should I wait for 2-3 days till the bees calm down?

[Michael Bush]

I would let them calm down, myself, but actually they are usually pretty docile after a long trip. A short trip they are often pretty worked up, but by the end of a long trip they are usually past that.

One day is long enough for them to get back to normal.

[Chef Isaac]

I just moved my hives 3 hours south of where they were and I would recomend not opening the hive and looking until a few days after placing the hives where you want. My journey was some what bumpy.

Sometimes if they are distrubed too much to quickly, they will blame the queen and than they will kill her.

I would wait until they settle in. JMHO

[Vladimir]

Hello all! My bees are working hard now. Meadows are blooming in our place. Since last Sunday, when I took them home, I did not open the hives. It's time to see how they are getting on.
How do you define that frames are overcrowded and put in new frames? When is it better to open hives (for bees) before the sunrise, or when they are at work, or in the evening?

[Lechwe]

You will definitely want to go into them on a nice sunny warm day with low humidity if at all possible. You won't be so concerned about individual frames being over crowded. Look for how many bees are in the hive all together. Is it one box deep or two. If the boxes seem like they have bees flowing out from every frame you may want to get a super on them to give them more room.

Good luck. If these are your first bees you are in for a life long addiction.

[Vladimir]

Thank you,Lechwe! I think it's a better addiction than alcohol or drugs.
So far there are only 4 frames in each hive plus 2 with empty combs separated from the rest by plywood shields. Today I am going to move the shields aside and insert 2 empty frames among the inhabitted ones.